


One in a Million...

by gothictricks



Series: One in a Million [1]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Drug Addiction, Eridium Addiction, F/M, Follows the Plot of Borderlands 2, Kinda Slow Build, Mordecai gets a girlfriend, Vex the Bounty Hunter - Freeform, Vexalara the Eridian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7483623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothictricks/pseuds/gothictricks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vexalara is an Eridian Bounty Hunter, meant to be a marvel, the perfect human and perfect machine combined into one. Capable of being in any situation and adapting to control it in seconds. But all of this... it started with a malfunction, a decision she shouldn't have had. A shot she chose not to take. </p><p>Now chasing rumors, a missing sister and a promise long forgotten, she finds herself on the savage border planet of Pandora, the title of Vault Hunter thrust upon her by the very man who stole her sister from her. Her quest for revenge brings the return of old friends, some new allies, and a familiar face who may just hold the key to her freedom.</p><p>A story of family, revenge, love, and what 'human' really means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up now: this is very, very reliant on the events of Borderlands 2, and is very spoiler heavy if you haven't played it. So you've been warned.
> 
> For the first part of the story, with the exception of Vex, all characters, settings, etc. belong to Gearbox and 2K.
> 
> I'm realizing now, rereading this, that I use a lot of lines from movies and TV shows. So credit for particular quotes goes to the appropriate studios and such.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introduction to One in a Million...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So at long last, more than six months after I last worked on this, here are the intro and first chapter for the rewritten One in a Million.
> 
> Hope you like!

The piercing shriek of his alarm rang in his earpiece, startling him out of his admittedly light sleep. Mordecai jolted upright before groaning loudly as his back and neck protested the uncomfortable position he had passed out in. He slumped heavily against the door of the small shack he currently inhabited, closing his eyes again. For a moment, he desperately chased the last traces of the dream he had just been dragged from, of flowing, wavy hair, a hesitant smile and worried eyes. When they quickly faded from his mind, he ignored the ever-present dull ache they left behind. He rubbed his face to wake himself up, fishing a glass bottle from his backpack by his side. He popped the top off with his blade, and took a long drink.

When the bottle was empty he set it aside with the others and painfully got to his feet. As he stretched, joints popping and cracking loudly, he peered through the metal slats that covered the sole window. The edge of the horizon was just beginning to lighten; if he slipped out now, he could be some ways away before dawn.

Every location he had searched had proved fruitless. The scanner had found nothing in the vicinity, and even with his tracking skill, he couldn’t find a trace of her. He’d looked everywhere, ignoring the insistent voice in the back of his mind.

_If she doesn’t want to be found…_

_I won’t find her. I know,_  he answered. _But I gotta try. I won’t stop until I’ve done everything I can._

He slung his bag over his shoulder and then picked up his rifle from its place behind the edge of the door. Opening it as quietly as he could, he checked that there were no witnesses to his departure and slipped out. Under the cover of the pre-dawn darkness, he quickly disappeared with one question on his mind, as it had been for weeks now.

_Where the hell are you, Vex?_

 

**THREE MONTHS EARLIER…**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience and understanding on me rewriting this, and how long it's been taking me. I truly appreciate it.
> 
> If you'd like to talk: borderlandsandsuch.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vex wakes up cold, wet, bleeding, and freezing in Windshear Waste. Needless to say, she's not particularly happy abut that.

_Fucking hell._

Every inch of Vex’s body ached. Several piercing pains shrieked at her if she shifted even slightly. Face down and half buried in the snow, her nose and mouth were full of the tiny ice shards, and she nearly choked on them as she tried to inhale. Raising her head was a chore, but she managed to expel them. Beyond the muffled ringing in her ears, she made out a robotic voice talking to itself, completely oblivious to her survival.

“Great, another dead Vault Hunter. Handsome Jack’s been busy,” it noted to itself. Another? She glanced around her as best as she could, blinking the water of melting snow out of her eyes. Bodies were scattered across the glacier, some whole, others rendered to pieces by the explosion and derailing of the train. In front of her was… a Hyperion steward robot? What was it doing all the way out… wherever here was? At that moment, it finally noticed her moving.

“Wait a minute, you’re not dead! YES!” It jammed the shovel it apparently had been using to bury bodies into the ice. Groaning in severe pain, she struggled onto her hands and knees. “Now I can finally get off this glacier! Claptrap, your metaphorical ship has finally come in!”

The snow beneath her was streaked and soaked with scarlet blood and cobalt blue magnetized fluid. Too much of it. Her minor movement prompted a coughing fit, and the remnants of the ice and even more red and blue splattered across the snow, not only from her mouth, but from her chest and abdomen as well. She faintly heard a _poof_ as shards and shrapnel landed in the snow when she shifted. Well, she wouldn’t exactly say ‘not dead’ just yet.

Vex searched quickly for the other train passengers in the snow, but couldn’t make out bright blue tattoos or a dingy orange t-shirt, a brown Dahl uniform or a black stealth suit. Most of the corpses were unidentifiable beneath burns and snow. The robot prattled on, introducing itself as a CL4P-TP steward bot, or Claptrap, along with making a couple fatalistic comments.

When she chanced to take a look at herself and evaluate her condition, she met a grisly sight. A wreck of nails and shrapnel jutted out of her chest, stomach, legs and forearms. She bit down on her lip to keep from screaming when what remained imbedded twisted and tore as she hauled herself to her feet. Claptrap rooted through the snow, patting down a nearby corpse, and retrieved what she recognized as an ECHO device. It was very outdated technology compared to her already integrated communication system, but she gingerly reached out and took it anyway, activating it. The robot urged her to follow it inside, and she gratefully staggered forward, every step bringing searing pain. She lagged behind as it rolled its way through the snow.

Suddenly, a painfully familiar picture flashed across her display, of a young woman, with ghostly pale skin and raven black hair that fluttered and flicked in a non-existent breeze. It had static and was constantly shifting, but she knew it too well.

“I’ll explain everything soon, but know this,” the Angel A.I. said coolly, “you’re alive for a reason, and I… am here to help you.” Vex snorted as she reached down and began pulling out shards of metal from her leg.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not you again,” Vex groaned and grimaced in equal parts pain and aggravation, her voice hoarse and her throat aching. “Hasn’t-,” she coughed and spit out more blood and fluid, “-Jack tormented me enough with you?”

“I know I’m not who you want to hear right now-” _Yeah, no fucking kidding._ “-but you will need my help,” the A.I. replied.

“Leave me to my almost-dying, ‘kay? Grazie,” she snapped bitterly. The A.I. sighed audibly, but said nothing more, and the looping video faded away.  
  
As she neared an enormous igloo surrounded by heaps of scrap metal and garbage, the robot congratulated her on walking a short distance without dying.

_Yay._

She glanced behind her at the impressive trail of red, blue, and purple that stained the snow and made a neat line to her location. She hoped there was a place inside Claptrap’s home where she could tend to her injuries. Her minor repair module was stowed in her bag, which she’d been eternally grateful to find had survived the trip without being torn completely to shreds. _Unlike yourself,_ she added drily.

Vex trudged after Claptrap again, as a beam of light scanned over them both. The robot rattled on about added security, ripping out eyes and something called a bullymong. She stumbled down the icy slope leading into the igloo once the door opened and nearly knocked the robot down. When the floor leveled out she landed hard on her hands and knees again. Metal shards jolted with the fall and she nearly shrieked in pain, biting her lip until it too was bleeding. Some slipped out and clattered on the ground. Vex crawled over to a couch and shoved an inactive robot off, before hauling herself up onto it.

“Sorry about the mess!” The robot’s grating voice reverberated in the small space. She groaned in response. “Everything Jack kills, he dumps here: bandits, Vault Hunters, Claptrap units…” She tuned it out as best as she could, finally turning her full attention to her injuries. She needed major repairs as soon as possible, she knew that. But the best she could do now was the regenerative medical injectors and whatever else she had in her bag. Which hopefully included her minor repair module. She spared another glance down at herself.

_This… this is going to fucking hurt._

As she reached for her bag, she picked up on one specific word amidst the robot’s unending babble.

“…dangerous, none more than this bullymong named Knuckle Dragger; killed everyone I know! Anywho, I keep a pistol in the cabinet over there for emergencies-” She paused.

_Don’t say it._

“-but in here, we should be pretty safe!”

_Fuck._

As if in response, an angry roar came from the ventilation hole in the roof. Vex watched, slack jawed and wide eyed as an enormous hulking beast covered in fur swung down. Claptrap screamed and attempted to roll away frantically but it snatched the bot with one hand and climbed back up the pipe. It paused to throw the robot into its other hand, before jamming its claws into the robot, ripping out the main lens. Claptrap shrieked in pain. The bullymong dropped it on the ground and swung back up the pipe with the eye, disappearing over the edge into the night.

 “Oh, you have _got_ to be _kidding_ me!” Vex yelled out loud. The robot was now fumbling around blindly, bumping into things.

“The gun. The gun in the cabinet,” it wheezed.

“In a fucking minute, Claptrap. I’m not about to bleed to death for the sake of getting your eye back.” Vex opened her bag, fingers crossed that something useful had survived. To her relief, her first aid and repair supplies were still in their case, and further investigation showed they were intact.

_First things first,_ she thought, as she retrieved one of the larger bottles of morphine. She eyed it for a second, before fishing out a syringe and injecting its entire contents into a vein in her arm. She tightened and unclenched her fist, as the liquid flowed through her system. Mechanical sounds quieted, pain dulled, and she felt human and machine blend together in a haze. She smiled to herself, and set to work. Next she yanked aside her jacket, shirt, and binder, and withdrew a knife from her bag. She carefully slit the skin above the repair port on the left side of her chest to access it, before plugging in the repair module.  
  
_Now the fun part,_ she groaned. She reached down to a large piece of metal that was embedded in her abdomen, and carefully worked it out. When it released with a sickeningly wet sliding sound, Vex watched as the metal underneath liquified and shifted, slowly reforming back together and closing the wound. The array of pieces and shards were dealt with the same way, each flowing and filling in gaps when the metal was removed. As she worked, her mind wandered away from the pain, tuning out the robot’s crashing and bumbling.  
  
A few hours ago, the Hyperion monorail train herself and four other so-called Vault Hunters had boarded was racing across an open desert landscape, occasional shrubs and cacti blurring passed. They had spent much of the beginning of their journey in uneasy silence, every person eyeing the other, scanning for weaknesses and labelling them friend or enemy. But her easy charm, a few sarcastic comments and a flirtation directed at the Pandoran native of all people had broken the tension in the air. Soon the conversation had begun, and she’d filed away information on each of them as they spoke...


End file.
